Limited opportunity

TO THE SURPRISE OF FEW, City Councilman Eric Garcetti is expected to succeed council President Alex Padilla, who is running for a seat in the state Senate. Garcetti is a smart, imaginative and modern liberal. He has the support of a majority of his colleagues and has patched up relations with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after endorsing the reelection of former Mayor James K. Hahn. That should be a recipe for some progress by the council next year.

Unfortunately, Garcetti is already in his second four-year term, the maximum allowed by term limits, and he will be able to give the job his full attention for about two years before he starts focusing on his next elected post. Padilla spent four years in the office, though some say he was elected president too early in his first term and too young (28 at the time) to get a strong grip on the job. He’s intelligent and ambitious, but it’s hard to judge his accomplishments because most of his time as council president was during the lackluster Hahn administration.

Welcome to the term limits merry-go-round, Los Angeles version.

Just before Padilla, and before City Council term limits took hold in 1997, was John Ferraro. Of his record-setting 35 years on the City Council, 18 were as president -- until the day he died in 2001. Ferraro was a household name in much of the city and alternately an ally and competitor of five-term Mayor Tom Bradley. He was a dealmaker with little patience for speechifying by his colleagues, ready to bring the gavel down and call for a vote. Ferraro pushed Bradley to embrace the 1984 Olympics, one of the city’s great public successes. He negotiated the exit of former Police Chief Daryl Gates after the 1992 riots.

Not everyone loved Ferraro. He was an old-fashioned politician, very close to big business. But voters knew him. Having a face on government is important, something the fans of term limits forgot. No matter how good today’s City Council members may be at their jobs, most voters couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. The lack of commitment and identification is even more pronounced in state government.

In addition, changes to the City Charter passed in 1999 increased the power of the mayor at the expense of the council. That’s good in the hands of a vigorous mayor, but the change required more political skill on the part of the council to move its own agenda.

We bid an early welcome to Garcetti, whose election to the presidency seems sealed by Padilla’s support. He appears to have the dedication and political savvy for the job. Too bad he’s not likely to have enough time to prove what he can do.